This invention relates to a speech-synthesizer timepiece, and more particularly to a speech-synthesizer timepiece capable of providing an audible announcement in advance of and immediately prior to the provision of audible sounds indicative of updated time.
A speech-synthesizer timepiece is well known, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,998,045 TALKING SOLID STATE TIMEPIECE by R. W. Lester. Such prior art was adapted to announce current time at preselected points in time by means of audible sounds. However, such prior art suffered from the disadvantages that the user might fail to listen or listen by mistake since audible sounds indicative of current time were provided without any advance announcement. For example, in the case where the audible sounds are automatically provided at an interval of one hour, the user may not be free of mistakes when listening to an audible indication of updated time unless electronic sounds such as onomatopoeic sounds ("peep peep") or words or phrases, such as "it" are provided in advance of the audible indication of updated time to attract the user's attention. Should the user fail to hear the leading sound (say, a consonant), the user would mistakenly misinterpret the audible sound indication. For example, with the audible indication of "five o'clock" ("goji" in Japanese), it is possible that the user may inadvertently hear only "oji" and thus misinterpret it to be "four o'clock" ("yoji" in Japanese).
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved sound-synthesizer timepiece which prevents the user's failure to hear and accurately interpret audible sounds or which prevents the user's error in dictating the audible sounds by providing advance announcement such as an audible phrase "it is now" or audible causation sounds, such as "peep peep".